jenniferlopezcelebrityfandomcom-20200213-history
Jennifer Lopez's Music
Jennifer Lopez appeared as an overnight sensation when she burst onto the entertainment scene in the mid-1990s. She was a talented, well-rounded modern woman, with pizzazz and good looks, plus singing, dancing, and acting accomplishments to her credit. A veteran of music videos, television, live stage shows, and commercial modeling, Lopez appeared in only a handful of minor film roles before she suddenly rocketed to stardom in the role of the murdered Tejano singing sensation Selena Quintanilla Perez. When Selena was released in theatres, Lopez emerged instantly as one of Hollywood's most popular leading ladies. She hailed from middle class roots in New York City's Bronx borough, entered show business in her mid-teens, and appeared variously as a background dancer, actress, and model before turning her sights to Hollywood. After she traveled the globe in musical revues and drifted through video and commercial work, she settled into steady employment in television work before starting a career as a film actress. Lopez appeared in six motion pictures between 1995 and 1998 and then took a one-year hiatus to re-address her musical career. When Lopez released her first CD in 1998, the album sold over two million copies by the year's end. Jennifer Lopez was born on July 24, 1970, in the Bronx borough of New York City, New York. She was the second of three daughters born to David and Guadalupe Lopez, originally from Ponce, Puerto Rico. David Lopez worked as a data processing manager for an insurance company and his wife was a kindergarten teacher. Lopez and her sisters, Leslie (two years older) and Lynda (the youngest) attended Holy Family School. The Lopez household was filled with music, good food, and fun. Lopez was destined for stardom even as a youngster—she espoused Rita Moreno as her greatest heroine and took dancing lessons from the age of five. Over the years she studied ballet and jazz, flamenco, piano, and was trained in classical theater. She also studied gymnastics, ran track, and played softball. Briefly while in high school, she entertained the possibility of becoming a professional beautician. Her parents meanwhile dreamed that their daughter might go to college and law school. Lopez succumbed instead to the lure of show business, despite her parents' disappointment when she announced that she would forego college to pursue a career in the theater. Before long, Lopez was on her own and living wherever she could afford the rent. For a time she stayed in a dance studio in Manhattan and later moved into an apartment in Hell's Kitchen. Lopez made her first film appearance in the small role of Myra in My Little Girl in 1986. She secured her first steady acting role in 1988 when she embarked on a five-month European tour of a live stage production called Golden Musicals of Broadway. She then toured Japan in a production of Synchronicity. Upon her return to the United States, she worked at dancing and modeling jobs, including appearances in music videos and commercials. Her dancing proficiency landed her a steady job in 1990 as a "fly girl" on the Fox television comedy show, In Living Color, with producer Keenan Ivory Wayans and choreographer Rosie Perez. Lopez quit In Living Color in 1991 to accept a role in a television pilot for a short-lived series called South Central. With the demise of that show, she moved into the role of Melinda Lopez on a CBS series called Second Chances starring Connie Selleca. The show lasted one season, and the writers carried Lopez's Melinda role into a spin-off series called Malibu Road. Following the Malibu Road series Lopez appeared as a nurse in a made-for-television movie called Nurses on the Line: The Crash of Flight 7. During the winter holidays in 1991-92 and 1992-93, she performed in the live-stage production of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol at McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey.